Motion Sickness (pron: mo-shon sik-ness)

…The state of being dizzy or nauseated because of the motions that occur while traveling in or on a moving vehicle…

…Motion sickness, also known as Travel Sickness, is a condition in which a disagreement exists between visually perceived movement and the vestibular system’s sense of movement…

…generalized discomfort experienced when an individual is in motion…

Although these definitions refer to the literal act of being in a moving vehicle like a car or boat and feeling sick, here are a few parallels between the literal definitions of motion sickness and “motion sickness on the road”:

Motion Sickness comes from being on the move, without a constant thing to focus on. One of the remedies for motion sickness in a car, for example, is to look out at the horizon. Seeing – and feeling – the grounding consistency of the horizon can help your body to understand its place in space and time, as opposed to focusing on your immediate surroundings (such as the seat in front of you, which isn’t moving, but actually is) and to have the blur of the world moving past you in your peripheral vision.

In the world of full-time travel, there often isn’t a figurative horizon to focus on.

Although full-time travelers will spout rhetoric like “the world is my home” and “everybody is my family” – and I’ve said such things myself – I’m starting to question the long-term sustainability of this ideology.